One thing I forgot to mention from the last journal entry was that
the Garmsir district governor is from a well-connected family in Kabul and is
too young to vote in the elections which will bring him into office.

Capt Arthur told me at lunch that the leave flights came up in the
daily operations and intelligence meetings. They brought up the fact that
the UA rate had actually increased, not decreased, and the CO Col Schmitt then
said, ‘this kind of shoots a hole in my theory that if we give them regular
leave that they will come back on time.’ He then launched into some odd logic
about how we need to make sure that they are getting back onto the flight,
talked about establishing an additional LNO up in Kabul to make sure that they
get there. It was all a little bit stupid. Because they already
have a roster, what is an LNPO going to do? Go to their house and force
them to get onto the flight. LtCol Valquist was also resistant to the
date that I graphed for him on UA rates, when it didn’t show what he wanted he
blamed the leave flights moving back by a few days and the guys leaving.
He also said that it was a result of him leaning on Col Kareem to stop
overstating the number of guys present so they can get extra chow money.
Sigh, it’s another example of wanting to believe something and finding facts to
support your case.

In the morning I worked on fixing the roster to get the perstats
for ANSF. Perstats that are really now pointless because I know that the data
is going to be ignored.

I told Salim to show up at 1400 for class. I found him in his
room still asleep at 1445. We had a teleconference at 1500, that was all
kinds of fucked up, only two kandaks showed, we only had the one SVOIP phone
because Maj B converted the other one to a NIPR so that ended up coming off
late. CJ Radin came over, he is a lot easier to deal with now that I am a
Capt, he seems a lot more relaxed.

Maj Kraus came back in the evening and said that RC(SW) is going to
invest 900,000,000 in facilities for the ANA. Awesome.

River City, Marine in N Marjeh stepped on an IED, why? What
for? For all this?